This morning, I made my final mortgage payment to the bank. For the first time since 1985 – forty years ago – I am mortgage debt free.
It all began with a three-bedroom former council house in Lichfield, where I’d just started teaching at Chadsmead Junior School. The house cost £20,000 – just shy of three times my salary – and I took out a 100% mortgage, something almost unthinkable today. I can still picture myself collecting the keys: proud, excited, and only dimly aware of the long financial journey I was beginning.
And what a journey it has been. There have been five home moves since then, and each time the mortgage payments grew as I clawed my way up the property ladder. Lewes, Chesham, Hackney, Wanstead, Oxfordshire. Month after month, year after year, the repayments followed me – through eye-watering interest rates in the late 80s and early 90s, through career changes, and all the twists and turns of life.
So when I logged into my banking app this morning and saw the words balance zero, I had to stop and stare. After forty years, it is finally done.
The emotions are mixed. Relief, of course, but also a strange sense of nostalgia. The mortgage has been a constant backdrop to my adult life – to be free of it now feels both liberating and surreal.
And what a lovely ending to this chapter of the story. Mark and I now own our beautiful thatched house in Oxfordshire outright. No more repayments. No more statements. Just the quiet satisfaction of knowing it’s truly ours.
I’m acutely aware, though, of how different things are for young people today. Back in 1985, a teacher on a modest salary could buy a £20,000 home with a 100% mortgage. That world has gone. I feel incredibly lucky – and more determined than ever to keep speaking up for fairness and opportunity.
But today, I’ll allow myself a simple smile. The bank has had its last pound from me. The house is ours. And it feels rather wonderful.
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